An Update from the Field

In the category of “It’s not education that matters as long as you have mandatory forced abortions”, we have an update from the Fickers:

Friday we went out to a remote village to do a mobile clinic. We have been there several times and it is a very isolated community of indigenous people with the normal needs of most communities in this area. This time however, we were stuck by the overwhelming need. Although we only saw about 60 people, almost all of the children were very sick or very malnourished or both. When we asked if there was enough food, most said no, some said that their harvest this year would be small.

Saturday, we had a pretty normal clinic day, adding only one new child to our already full feeding program. But later that evening, Cali, our friend from the Peace Corps who works in the city office came with news of the “red alert” in our area – signifying the urgent need for food. We spent much of the evening trying to figure out ways to help.

And today, I was overwhelmed with requests for food. Almost everyone we talked to said they were out of corn, some asked for corn, others asked for money, and almost all seemed resigned and without hope. These are people who live always on the edge of desperation…even in the best of times. One woman came asking for prayer for her husband who was threatening suicide. She is 8 months pregnant and told me that her husband said that if the baby was a girl, he would feed her poison as well…but if it is a boy, he will let him live. And so we prayed for Felipe, we prayed that God would open his eyes to see his value as a husband, as a father, as a child of God; that he would see the importance of his life, that he would understand and know his God and Father who longs to love him.